The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1887-04-20
REV. .DR.TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S sun
DAY SERMON
Subject: "a Live Church."

TEXT: " Unto the angel of the Church i,
Smyrna urite: These things saith the frs
and the last, arhich ,Vas dead, and is alire.
Revelation, IL, ).
Smyrna was a great city of the ancientS
bounded on three sides by mountains. 1t wa
the central emporium of the Ievantine trade
In that prosperous and brilliant city there
was Christian Church established. After il
had existed for while it was rocked doWr
by an earthquake 1t was rebuilt. Then /,
was consumed by conhagration that swept
over the entire city. That Church went
through fire, and trouble, and disaster, bu,
kept on to great spiritual prosperity. The
fact was that Church had the grace of God
an ever active principle. Had it been other,
wise, all the grandeur of architecture and al
the pomp OF surroundings would only have
been the ornament of death-the garlandS OF
o coffin, the plumeS of a hearSe.
1t may be profitable to consider what are
the elements of a live Church.
/ remark in the first place, that one char
acteristic of such Church is punctuality in
meeting its engagements. All ecclesiastical
institutions have financial relations, and they
ought to meet their obligations just as Ger
tainly as men meet their obligations at the
bank When Church of God is not as faithful
ceases TO be Church of God. 1t ought to be
understood that prayers cannot paint q
Church, and prayers cannot pay the winter S
coal bill. and prayers cannot meet the lnSul-
ance: and that, while prayers can do a
thousand things, there are a thousand
things that prayers cannot do. Prayer
for any particular Church will never
reach heaven high unless it goes down
pocket deep. In my Church at the West,
xbaro 1yoc mon of ,.nrp fprt a b1a praaOc who
used to pray for his pastor in such elongated
style that he became nuisance to the prayer
meeting: asking God, in a prayer that was
almost without ceaSing, that the pastor might
be blessed in his basket and in his store, while
the fact was he never paid anything. Ii We
pray for tie advancement of the Church, and
do not out of our means contribute for its ad-
vancement, our prayer IS only mockery. Let
the Church of God then meet its obligations
on the outside, and let the members of every
congregation meet the obligations on the in
side, and the Church will be financially pros
porous.
Let me say, also, that there must be punctu-
ality in the attendance on the house of the
Lord. If the service begins at half past ten
in the morning, the regular congregation OF
live church will not come at quarter to
eleven If the service is to begin at half past
seven in the evening, the regular congrega-
quarter to eight. In some churches | have
noticed the people are always tardy. There
are some people who are always late. They
were born too late and the probability is they
will die too late The rustling of dresses up
the aisle, and the slanming of doors, and
the treading of heavy feet, is poor
inspiration for a minister. 1t requires great
abstraction in a pastors mind to proceed with
the preliminary exercises OF the Church when
LII &c "a tod
around to see the other half come in. Such
q difference of attendance upon the house
of God may be difference of time-pieceS;
but the live Church of which / am speaking
ought to go by railroad time, and that Is
pretty well understood in all our communities
There is one hymn that ought to be sung in q
great many Christian families on Sabbath
morning:
early, my God, without delay,
haste to seek Thy face"
Another characteristic of live church is
the fact that all the people participate in the
exercises. A stranger can tell by the way the
first tune starts whether there is any life
there A church that does not sing is dead
church. It is awful to find cold drizzle Of
music coming down from the organ loft,
while all the people beneath sit in silence.
When tune wanders around, lonely and un-
ptlEIcuueO, 10 uudliJ lNSe ailiAo tiiC oi SheS
because the people do not join in it, there is
not much melody made unto the Lord. In
Heaven they all sing, though some there
cannot sing half as well as others.
The Methodist Church has sung all around
the world, and gone from conquest to
conquest, among other things because it is a
singing church; and any Christian church Or
ganiZation that with enthusiasm performs this
part of its duty will go on from triumph to
fri,, 4 nf 90
do anything that ought to be done. We go
forth into this holy war with the Bible in one
hand and a hymn-book in the other. Oh! We
who used to sing the praises of the Lord and
have got out of the habit, take your harps
down from the willows. am glad to know
that, as a church, we are making advance
ment in this respect. When came to be your
pastor we had an excellent choir in the little
chapel, and they sang very Sweetly to us Sab
bath by Sabbath; but ever and anon there was
trouble, for you know that the choirs in the
United States are the Waterloos where the
great battles go on. One Sunday they will
sing like angels, and the next Sunday they
will be mad, and will not sing at all. We re-
solved to settle all the difficulties, and have
one skillful man at the organ, and one man
to do the work Of a precentor; and now, from
Sabbath to Sabbath, the song comes up like
the voice of mighty thunderings.
"Let those refuse to sing
Who never knew our God;
But children of the Heavenly King
Should speak their joys abroad"
On the way to triumph that never ends, and
pleasures that never die-sing!
Another characteristic of live church is a
fiourishing Sabbath-school. 1t is too late In
the history of the Christian Church to argue
the benefit of such an institution. The Sab
bath-school is not a supplement to the Church
it is its right arm. But you say there are
dead churches that have Sabbath-schools.
Yes, but the Sabbath-schoolS are dead, too.
1t is dead mother holding in her arms a
dead child. But when superintendent, and
teachers, and scholars come on Sabbath after
moons together, their faces glowing with in
terest and enthusiasm, and their songs are
heard all through the exercises, and at the
close they 60 away feeling that they have
been on the Mount of TRANSPORTATION that
is a live school, and it is characteristic of O
live Church. There is only one thing have
against the Sabbath-schools of this country,
and that is, they are too respectable. We
gather into our schools the children
and the educated; but alas for the
great multitude Of the children of the
abandoned and the lost A few of them are
gathered into our Sabbath-schoos; but what
about the 70,0OO destitute children of New
York, and the score of thousands Of des-
titute children of Brooklyn, around whom
are thrown no benign, and heavenly, and
Christian influences! 1t is a tremendous ques
tion, what is too become of the destitute chill
dren of these cities! We must act OH then
or they will act on u.s. We will either Chris
tianize them, or they will heathenize us. ItE
a question not more for the Christian thai
for the philanthropist and the statesmen.
Obi if we conld have all these suffer
ing little ones gathered together, wha
a scene of hunger, and wretchedness
and rags, and sin, and trouble, am
darkness! If we could see those littll
feet on the broad road to death, which
throuph Christian charity ought to b